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The U.S. Education System: What Went Wrong? Part II

Of all the educational atrocities that have come to pass since our country’s infancy, the most tragic of all occurred when we took the focus off of the individual. The Founders believed that every individual citizen, no matter their circumstance, could become whatever they wanted if they were willing to work for it

Benjamin Franklin did not grow up surrounded by wealth, but what he lacked in riches he made up for with passionate curiosity. It was Franklin’s constant need-to-know-how-things-worked disposition that led him to success, despite having only spent a year or two in school.

Franklin discovered at an early age that his educational ends were better suited by exploration and experimentation. Unlike his classmates, he did not bode well in the traditional classroom environment.

Fortunately for Franklin, compulsory schooling had not yet been instituted which gave him the ability to learn as he pleased. It is frightening to think what may have occurred if Franklin had been forced to attend the conventional schools he so detested.

Like Franklin, not all children were made to fit into the mold of public school. Public schooling has become a mechanism in which one-size-fits-all, a belief that completely alienates the idea of individualism.

If we hope to achieve a nation filled with minds like Franklin’s, we need to discourage the idea that a uniform curriculum can produce satisfying results.

We need to start embracing the fact that no two children are the same. If we return to a system focused on individual choice, we can better suit the needs of our children.

Instead of producing obedient machines, we need to be producing independent thinkers.

Amen! I assume you are familiar with Ben Franklin's autobiography, one of my favorite little books. He and his peers taught themselves many things, including how to improve writing style, how to do arithmetic (Franklin did badly in his one effort to learn arithmetic through formal education), languages, science, and many other things.

While he did exceptionally well, this style of learning was the norm in America for many years.

On the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference, a panel, moderated by Sabrina Schaeffer of the Independent Women’s Forum, met to discuss what’s next for Common Core. Their conclusion: Common Core will be a very important platform stance in the 2016 election. They are completely right.

For the last several months, FreedomWorks has been part of a broad coalition dedicated to improving educational choice in Virginia. Over the last month, FreedomWorks activists in Virginia have made over 125 calls to targeted state legislators to strongly encourage support for HB 2238.

Democracy and Power 114: The Power Players
Who actually controls the force of government? Politicians and interest groups control the American political process. Special-interest groups – i.e. big business, big unions, education, seniors, and a multitude of others - seek favors: tax breaks, subsidies, exclusive legislation, etc. Special-interest groups give enormous amounts of money to political campaigns in order to receive gigantic benefits in return.

Grassroots Will Make School Choice a Reality!
After more than 20 years of experimentation and intense debate, Americans favor school choice. A national survey by Beck Research shows 69% of Americans support school choice, including 60% of Democrats.

Lately, we’ve seen a seemingly endless assault on education freedom, in the form of misguided proposals from a president bent on cramming backwards education policy down the country’s throat. Fortunately, Republicans have a two-chamber majority now, and a Speaker of the House with a history leading the charge to promote school choice.

On January 6, the grassroots in Mississippi made a huge statement to the state legislature. We the People are telling OUR elected officials that Common Core is unacceptable as standards and curriculum for our school children. It is particularly offensive due to the fact that it was adopted in order to receive federal funds before the standards were even written.

When I was growing up under Mao’s regime in China, we were told to chant everyday in the government run public schools, “Long Live Chairman Mao, Long Live Communist Party.” We were required to write in our dairies every day and turn them in for teachers to review. In the dairies, we were supposed to confess our incorrect thoughts to Mao or do self criticism, or report anything bad we heard or saw from other students, family, and friends. We would memorize Mao’s Quotations and recite them aloud during class. For school fun activities, we would dress up as Chinese minority people in their costumes to sing and dance, thanking Mao and Communist Party from saving them from poverty, or dressed up like soldiers to fight for new China. Mao was like a god to me. I would see him rising from the stove fire or talking to me from the clouds.

As parents desiring to find a proper high school education for our 13 year old son, we have been researching a prep school in Indiana that shares our values of faith, founders and traditional academics. This school, as does the majority of all prep schools, employs the services of the SSAT (Secondary School Admissions Test) exam. It’s this that I want to discuss.

What an amazing 3 days with the WV Against Common Core(WVACC) crew & Dr. Sandra Stotsky! We had great turnout on Sunday in Bridgeport, WV. FreedomWorks joined West Virginians Against Common Core to host a town hall forum on Common Core.

I am an Chinese immigrant who come to America to seek freedom from the Communist China. I was born right before China’s Cultural Revolution and grew up in Chengdu, Capitol of Sichuan province, China. As you know, in China there is only one party that is truly in power: The Communist Party. The government, which is the Communist Party, controls everything: Factories, schools, the press, hospitals, land, and universities. Growing up there, I never heard of such a thing as a “private company." There were no choices of any sort. We were all poor. We had no gas or stove, no TV, no phones, no refrigerators, and no washing machines. In the cities, electricity was rationed. In the countryside, there was no electricity.